I tried to laugh. "You're good for another twenty-five years, Charlie."
He shook his head stiffly, staring at nothing. "Maybe. Anyway, I'm gonna get off the Shuttle this time, make one more trip to Mars. Tell you what. There's a little stone cafe on Mars, the Space Rat, just off Chandler Field on the Grand Canal. When you get to Mars, take a look inside. I'll probably be there."
He coughed again, a deep, rasping cough that filled his eyes with tears.
"Not used to this Earth air," he muttered. "What I need's some Martian climate."
Suddenly that cough frightened me. It didn't seem normal. I wondered, too, about his stiff movements and glassy stare. It was as if he were drugged.
I shook the thought away. If Charlie was sick, he wouldn't talk about going to Mars. The medics wouldn't let him go even as far as Luna.
We watched him leave, you and Mickey and I.
"When will you be back?" you asked.
Charlie's hard face contorted itself into a gargoylish grin. "Maybe a couple of months, maybe a couple of years. You know spacemen."
Then he waved and strode away, a strange, gray, withered gnome of a man.